The Linux Foundation-led open-source Hyperledger blockchain consortium has released its first production-ready blockchain software in the formal release of Hyperledger Fabric 1.0.

Heralding the release as a ‘huge milestone’ for a community of over 140 members representing a multitude of industries, Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee Chair and technical chief of open technology at IBM Chris Ferris underlined the effort of 159 engineers from 27 organizations contributing to the Hyperledger Fabric. The project was initially contributed by New York-based industry startup Digital Asset and technology giant IBM.

Intended as a foundation for developing applications or solutions with a modular architecture, Hyperledger Fabric allows components, such as consensus and membership services, to be plug-and-play,’ reads a description of the project on its official page. ‘Hyperledger Fabric leverages container technology to host smart contracts called “chaincode” that comprise the application logic of the system.’

One of eight projects to be incubated by the consortium, Hyperledger Fabric was the first to exit its one-year incubation period before triggered into becoming active in March. The software has already been deployed in a number of use cases across the world. IBM’s BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service) offering for enterprises used code from the Hyperledger Fabric v1.0, as does SWIFT’s ongoing cross-border payments endeavor.

The Hyperledger Technical Steering Committee (TSC) was established in February 2016 and was tasked to review all technical contributions, open for anyone to turn in “at any time, from anyone”. The TSC will also oversee the project’s entire technical direction and working groups and has a notable influence in the future of the eight projects in the incubator and others under the Hyperledger banner.

In announcing the release of Hyperledger Fabric 1.0, TSC chair Chris Ferris stated there was much work to be done on performance of the software with plans toward adding ‘scale and chaotic testing’ to make the platform more robust. Still, Ferris revealed the time was right for a full public release of the software.

He wrote:

[T]he project’s maintainers felt that the time was ripe to deliver a robust initial major release with the objective of allowing consumers and vendors of technology based on Hyperledger Fabric to advance to the next stage: production deployment and operations.

For Hyperledger executive director Brian Behlendorf, the blockchain revolution is only beginning. In comments to the New York Times, he stated:

These kinds deep revolutions take some time, but I am confident that competent development teams inside organizations can start to look at that [Hyperledger Fabric] and go all the way to running it in production.

Featured image from Hyperledger.

About The Author

Samburaj is the Editor for CCN, among the earliest and foremost publications covering blockchain, cryptocurrency and financial technology news. He has authored over 1,500 articles for CCN and is invested in Bitcoin. Email: [email protected]